The Break Down
by adangeli
Summary: She wondered, briefly, if the last seven months had made him as edgy as they'd made her. AU. Part 6 of the In Washington Series. Art by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse.


The engine clunked three sickly times before it made a grinding noise and then stalled completely. Sam guided the car over to the shoulder before it stopped rolling and hoped she could get all the way out of the roadway without being forced to push. This damn car – it might be a classic, but all it really was was a classic pain in the ass.

She flipped open her cell phone and noted the time. It was after ten. She groaned. Then she dialed AAA. After a too-long conversation during which she ensured the operator no fewer than three times that she was safe – as safe as houses with her service pistol in the glove box – she discovered that the tow truck was going to take more than an hour to reach her. She was twenty minutes outside of the city at most. And she might be safe, and she might be armed, but it was late and...

She shook her head. She was trying to justify calling Jack. She didn't really need to justify it. He wouldn't mind. He was probably sitting on his couch watching television. Maybe he'd have to get dressed to come and get her – and boy did that set her mind to work. And it made the decision for her. She pressed his speed-dial and waited for him to pick up.

"Sam," he said, concern in his voice, after just one ring, "what's wrong?"

"I'm fine," she reassured him right away. "I broke down on George Washington Memorial Parkway."

"Is a tow truck coming?"

"Yeah. It'll be over an hour, but he's coming." She could hear rustling around on his end of the phone.

"I'll come and get you."

"You don't mind?" Because really, she could get a ride back into the city with the tow truck...

"Carter," he said gruffly, "I don't mind." A few more beats during which she pictured him donning jeans, and then, "Text me your GPS coordinates and I'll be right there."

"Yeah, okay." She tried not to sound disappointed because she knew that doing so meant she needed to get off the phone with him.

"I can call you back when I get the text," he offered, his voice taking on a strange tone she'd never heard from him before. It sounded maybe like affection, with a little exasperation thrown in for good measure.

"No," she said quickly. "You'll be here soon. I'll keep the flashers on for you," she said, hoping that the joke didn't fall flat.

He chuckled and she felt better. "Okay, I'll be there soon."

"See you then." She disconnected, used Google Maps to get her GPS location and then texted it to him. He'd come straight to her, she'd see him before she knew it.

For twenty minutes she ruminated on the images of him sitting on his couch in his t-shirt and boxers – she didn't even know if that was a thing he did, did he even wear boxers? – and then having to get dressed to come and get her. She pictured him threading his long legs into jeans, his fingers on shirt buttons, anything and everything to keep herself just on the far side of keyed up. It wasn't fair to herself, really, but it felt good, it was fun, so she went with it.

Then, when she was in the middle of a particularly detailed fantasy about him taking the clothes off, his big dark truck pulled up behind her, his headlights shining into the car and bouncing off the rearview mirror. She held up a hand and blinked against the intrusion and in the next moment his lights switched to low-beams. She reached over, pulled her pistol out of the glove box, then climbed out of the car.

They met in the space between their bumpers. "Everything okay?" he asked her immediately, gesturing lightly to the gun.

"Oh," she said, "yeah. Just had it in my glove compartment. Don't want to leave it," she shrugged.

"How much longer until the tow arrives?"

She checked the clock on her cell phone. "I don't know. Forty minutes at least."

He nodded. "We can wait in the truck."

It was a nice night, but she didn't have any desire to stand on the side of the road. "Sure."

In the cab of the truck he had the AC on and the opera music he favored playing lowly. It was a comfortable night, not quite warm enough for the AC, though, and she shivered slightly. Then he was leaning across her body to shut the vents that were blowing on her. Her awareness to his proximity manifested itself in a shudder and a strange sound from the back of her throat.

He looked at her askance. "You okay there?"

"Yeah," she said quickly. Maybe too quickly. And she was glad it was dark in the cab because she didn't want to see the skeptical look on his face and she didn't want him to see the blush that was staining her cheeks. This was ridiculous, really. She needed to get a grip.

But he was close. So close. And seemed to be studying her. And it didn't do much to slow or deepen her breathing, him being so close she could smell the last vestiges of his aftershave. He smelled warm and a little spicy. She licked her lips.

Abruptly, he moved back over to his side of the cab. She wondered, briefly, if the last seven months had made him as edgy as they'd made her. She wanted him, there was no denying that. But more than that, she wanted to know him. And she felt like there was still so much he had to tell her. And part of her was still holding out because he was, after all, her partner. And what happened to their partnership if the something-more went sour? He was a good partner and she didn't want to lose him.

So instead, she bounced around in this purgatory of sorts where she wanted him but wouldn't let herself have him.

There were times she was sure he wanted her, too, though. They'd had moments, here and there, during the months of their partnership, when he looked at her or touched her briefly and she just knew. If she'd give him a clear signal, she'd be in his arms before she knew what happened.

Or, at least, she assumed that was how it would go. But chalk that up to more stuff she didn't know about him. For all she really knew he was a master at repressing his desires and wouldn't cross the invisible line of partnership to something more.

So she stuck with the relatively safe fantasies that she had much more often than she probably should if she wanted to maintain a professional distance from him. But she didn't want to maintain that distance. Not really. Not anymore. She was nervous about making the first move, though, and, therefore, they went on – living the status quo.

The sound of him sitting next to her, breathing, was doing her libido no favors, though, and she decided, as much as the velvety sound of his voice did things to her, too, that it was safer to be talking. "Did I interrupt anything?"

"Nope. Was just watching some television."

"The Simpsons?" She teased. He loved that show. She couldn't figure out why...

"I do watch other things, you know."

"Like hockey?"

"Yes," he said haughtily. "And other things too."

"Twenty-four hour news."

"Hey, a guy needs to stay up on current events."

He was a dichotomy, that was for sure. The same man who listened to the rich sounds of opera was just as happy to watch a lazy yellow cartoon dad or a violent hockey game. His love for MSNBC fit more with the opera, she thought. Hell, for all she knew, his love of The Simpsons was more to get a rise out of people than it was a true love for the cartoon. She looked at him hard. Then again... no, he probably just really loved the damn show.

"Did you even stop to eat tonight?" He asked her rather suddenly.

She thought back over the last few hours and realized, quite suddenly and only because he'd brought it up, that no, she hadn't stopped for dinner. "Uh..."

"That's what I thought." He rubbed his hands on his thighs. "We'll stop on the way back into town."

"I have food at home," she pointed out.

"Popcorn and yogurt don't count."

She grimaced. She had plenty of yogurt. And a fresh box of microwave popcorn. But little else. "Okay." This from a man who would eat full meals in the middle of the night but settle for a piece of pie during the regular hours of the day. She had no clue how he kept in such good shape. "But nothing too heavy."

"Soup and a sandwich from that all night diner around the corner from your place?"

It wasn't Millie's but it was pretty good. And they were getting as well known there as he was at Millie's. "Sure. I could go for a -"

"BLT?"

She chuckled. "Yeah." As if on cue, her stomach rumbled.

He harrumphed, clearly his point had been made for him.

They sat quietly for a while after that. The music was nice and he turned it up once when Puccini played. And then, twenty minutes early, the tow truck appeared.

Sam got out to deal with the driver and wasn't surprised to find that Jack got out of the truck as well, though he stayed several paces behind her. There if he was needed – if the guy turned out to be a serial killer or something – but not overbearing in a way that made her think he thought she couldn't take care of herself. She liked so many things about the man. She really did.

She handed over her keys to the tow truck driver, gave him the name of the shop she wanted the car taken to, then watched as he hooked it up to his truck. Within fifteen minutes he was on his way and she was comfortably seated back in Jack's truck, buckling her seat belt.

She looked at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was only a few minutes after eleven. But still, it felt oddly titillating to be with Jack so late when work wasn't involved. It was a school-girl sort of thrill, but she wasn't going to stop herself from enjoying it. From enjoying being with him.

He started the truck, then eased out onto the roadway and soon they were rolling down the highway, the occasional set of headlights lighting up the interior of the cab and letting her get a surreptitious look at his face. He looked relaxed and content and she was surprised to find that considering she'd pulled him out of his house so late on a Sunday night. But he didn't seem any worse for the wear for it.

"Thanks for this," she said.

He looked over at her for a long moment before turning back to the road. "Of course," he said, like she didn't even need to bother asking. And truthfully, she realized, she hadn't asked. He'd just said he was coming, like it was a foregone conclusion. That warmed her insides. She remembered a time when she'd broken down in this very same car and she'd had to ask three times for Jonas to come and get her and still she'd ended up getting a ride with the tow truck driver and then taking a cab home. They were very different men. And it was no contest as to who was the better.

"Don't say it like it's nothing," she said. "I appreciate this. A lot."

"Carter, what kind of guy would leave you sitting on the side of the road?"

She saw the moment he realized he'd just tapped into her history because the content look on his face shifted until his mouth was tight and he was gripping the steering wheel like it was somebody's neck.

"He was an idiot," Jack mumbled.

"Yes."

She could tell that he wanted to ask why she'd stayed so long, but it hadn't been that long since she'd confessed to him the structure of her relationship with Jonas. It didn't make her sound good, that was for sure, but she hoped it didn't make her sound like someone stupid.

"He wasn't all bad. But the bad certainly outweighed the good."

"Hmm."

She didn't say anything else about Jonas after that. And she wasn't sure what Jack was thinking. But she watched as his hands relaxed on the steering wheel. And the next time, when a car went by, she noticed his face wasn't quite so tense. She relaxed back into her seat; she hadn't realized that tension had crawled up her spine.

She was surprised when they pulled onto a well lit street. She'd been so caught up in him and their bits of conversation that she'd lost track of where they were. They weren't far from her apartment now, or the little diner he wanted to take her to.

He navigated the roads easily, one wrist hooked over the wheel, his other hand resting lightly on his thigh. A far cry from the death grip he'd had on the steering wheel a little while ago. Jonas was far from his mind at the moment, it was clear.

She wondered, for a moment, about his history and whether or not the details would make her tense or sad or pained. She wanted so much to ask him things about himself. Because while she knew what he liked to watch on television and what he liked to eat and the other minutiae of daily life, she had no idea what shadows were lurking in his past.

She was scared to ask, too. Scared to see the shutters drop down over his eyes. Afraid of what he'd think of her if she asked. Because it had been made clear so far that there were some things that were off limits. And the cause of his divorce was one of those things. She wondered about the woman who would divorce Jack O'Neill. While Sam was under no misconceptions that he was perfect, he was obviously a good man.

She knew things in her past made her character questionable. And she wondered if things from his past would make her question him, as well. But she couldn't think of a single thing that was so bad that she'd fundamentally change how she saw him.

She must have been looking at him awfully hard because after he pulled into a parking place at the diner and turned off the truck, he turned to her and asked, "What?"

"You're a good man," she said softly, tipping her head to the side, as if it were a revelation.

Because of the lights streaming into the cab, she could see color flood into his cheeks. "You don't know everything about me," he said, dismissing her thought easily.

"I know enough."

"No, you don't." He said gruffly. "Come on. Let's get you fed." He opened his door without looking at her and then climbed out. He was halfway to the door of the diner before she thought to follow. He beat her to the door and then stood there, holding it open, until she walked in ahead of him.

She ordered the BLT and a cup of tomato soup. He ordered coffee and a slice of cherry pie. "That's going to keep you up all night," she admonished him lightly.

"One cup of coffee?" he scoffed. "Not likely."

She shrugged one shoulder, looking down at the table. Unsure how to talk to him after what he'd said in the truck.

"I'm sorry," he said after a long moment. "I didn't mean anything by what I said."

"But you were right."

"About?"

"I don't know enough about you. You know so much more about me and the stuff I did wrong than I know about what happened to you."

"I don't talk about it," he reminded her, in the very same tone he'd used at Millie's that first night they'd gone to a diner together.

"Maybe you should."

"Sam," he said on a sigh and not unkindly, "let it go."

He sounded so tired, so used up that she heeded his request with a nod. Whatever had happened to him had hurt him. Had made him tired. Had changed him. And she could leave him alone with that until he trusted her more. Though it did hurt a little that he didn't trust her enough yet.

"Sorry," she said smally.

He sighed again, this time heavily. "You don't have to be sorry. Just... I don't talk about it," he said again.

"Okay."

He waited until she looked at him, nodded once, and then his eyes were cast over her shoulder. "Food's here."

The soup was good, the BLT was better, and she didn't realize how hungry she was until she'd plowed through half her meal. "This was a good idea."

"You eat like a college student."

"You eat like a teenager. I don't know how you stay in such good shape."

"Crunches," he said, a crooked smile on his face.

"And much more, I'm sure."

"I may belong to a gym."

"How is it that we've been partners seven months and I've never once heard you say you were going to the gym?"

"Because I go in the mornings, when I can."

She just shook her head. So many things she knew about him. So many things she didn't. She wondered if she'd ever get to know him fully.

"You know me, Sam."

She looked up at him sharply, wondering if she'd spoken aloud. She could tell by the soft look in his eyes that he was trying to reassure her, not placate her. She wondered if she was so transparent or he really was just that good a detective. She knew he was good as his job. She also knew she was lousy at hiding her emotions – they played out across her face.

"You know me," he said again, softly.

The intensity he spoke with made her eyes drop to his mouth, made her want to taste his sincerity. When she looked back at his eyes, he was looking at her intently. She knew he'd noticed her eyes on his mouth. She wondered what he thought.

Did he ever think about her the way she thought about him? They had chemistry. He'd done things over the course of time that made her think he was attracted to her like she was attracted to him. But did she ever say something in a way that made him want to taste her?

"Right," she said. Both sure he was right and sure that she'd never known someone less. She pushed her plate away, half the soup and half the sandwich left, but her appetite killed.

"Done?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to take you home?"

No. "Yeah."

She paid for their meals, forestalling his argument with a raised hand. In the truck there was silence again, but this time it was slightly uncomfortable.

In the parking lot of her apartment building he turned to her, with the engine idling and her hand on the door handle. "Thanks for calling me tonight."

He was thanking her for ripping him out of his house and ending the night on an uncomfortable note? "Thanks for coming to get me."

"Anytime," he said intensely and her eyes snapped to his.

"Goodnight, Jack."

"Goodnight."

In her apartment she made a glass of water and leaned against the kitchen counter replaying the tones of his voice throughout the night. The impulse she'd had to kiss him. And she realized that it didn't matter what she didn't know. She was falling for him. It wasn't just an attraction, it wasn't just lust – though she'd admit to those powerful feelings if she only had to admit them to herself. It was the other feelings she was harboring that made it hurt so much that there were things he'd keep from her.

But she had to give him his space. He'd tell her when he was good and ready. She had to believe that. And in the meantime she'd continue to share herself with him in good faith, showing him that opening up to someone wasn't a bad thing. It might be scary, but it was worth it. Somehow, she'd figure out how to break down the barriers between them.


End file.
